


First Comes Love

by counterheist



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: F/M, Gen, france jokes, marriage for reasons, supreme cockblock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-23
Updated: 2011-06-23
Packaged: 2017-12-07 01:05:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/742308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/counterheist/pseuds/counterheist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On their wedding night, Spain and his bride almost reach an agreement.</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Comes Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [meginatree](https://archiveofourown.org/users/meginatree/gifts).



> Auction fic from my posting for [help-japan](http://help-japan.livejournal.com/). Prompt was something like 'teen Spain marries younger teen fem!Romano to protect her from anybody else', but has since been lost to the sands of time because LJ deletes your inbox without telling you.

They dragged her away from the ceremony as soon as it had fulfilled its function. The candles remained lit. The final hymn wound steadily on towards its fourth extravagant, extremely lengthy verse. The gossiping congregation, the court, went largely ignored, even as the number of voices whispering began to outweigh those singing.

“ _There are other ways to keep our lands safe from the French!”_

“ _This is the way.”_

“ _I am your **king**._ ”

“ _I am your **kingdom**._ ”

Before the altar, silent in the storm, Spain stood. He ignored the frown from his king and the weight of every stare on the back of his neck. He might have prayed, or he might have only taken the time to breathe. Later he wouldn’t remember.

He hadn’t quite expected his court to understand his decision. Not even his king. Spain had, however, expected the others of his kind to recognize his actions for what they were. He had seen a threat and taken an action. There was nothing strange there: others had married for protection before and others still would follow. But when Spain finally bowed and took his leave, surrendering himself to a side chapel and his two servants, he was disappointed.

Belgium tugged, perhaps a little too tightly, at the collar of Spain’s coat. After a short breath she regained her composure. “How will you explain this to Austria?”

“Austria?”

“I doubt he ever expected he was sending you a wife to raise.” Belgium hadn’t ever expected it either. Little Romana had been reticent and ill-tempered ever since her arrival. Belgium had only barely drawn the girl out of her fits and wraths with stray sweets and well-placed kindnesses; the latter had been beyond Spain. Even with the former he had only barely been able to stand the company of his protectorate. When had that ever turned into grounds for marriage?  
  
Once relieved of his heavy ceremonial overcoat, Spain pondered the largest ring on his left forefinger. He rubbed it lightly with his thumb and waited for Belgium to finish setting his clothes where they belonged. “… Austria will think of it as another bond in our alliance.” Spain nodded to himself. “She was his, he gave her to me, and now I’ve made her mine.”  
  
“Or,” the chapel door opened heavily. Spain raised his eyebrows but didn’t break the smile on his face when the Netherlands stepped forward, “he’ll praise God that there’s only a small chance of you ever sending her back.”  
  
Spain paused. “Why would I send her back?”  
  
Belgium would have sighed and rolled her eyes, and brought up the countless times when he had tried to do exactly that. She would have brought up the time Spain had managed to get Romana all the way back to the Hofburg palace, how Romana had attempted to throw him out of the carriage on the ride back, and how he had responded by ordering two ladies in waiting ( _Spanish, of course_ ) to monitor her actions at all times. Belgium would have mentioned all of those things, except she was a woman and one of Spain’s lands besides. Spain liked having her around for her light and her laughter; not for her thoughts.  
  
“Because you are a fool.”  
  
Although he did not reign over himself, the Netherlands was still a man. And that made all the difference.  
  
“I am a fool?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Truly?”  
  
Although the Netherlands felt no lie in his words, felt they were truer than most creeds, he faltered. “…yes.” The look on Spain’s face had hovered into the realm of some storm the Netherlands had no desire to see. Not yet. Not until he was ready.  
  
“Then you are the servant of a fool?”  
  
Belgium broke in softly. The tension slid its gloves back on, gentlemanly, for her sake. “Brother, did you make sure Romana was brought to her new apartments safely?” That task had been delegated only to Lady Somesuch, but Belgium had seen when the Netherlands had stopped leaning against the shadowed pillar of his choice, and had also seen which direction he had headed in. No matter how tough he liked to play himself, he was still a brother. He cared. Maybe somewhere inside of himself he even cared about their ‘protector’.  
  
Said ‘protector’ turned at the mention of his new bride. “Yes? Is she behaving?”  
  
“She is as safe as she will ever be, now that—” Belgium bit her lip, but for once the Netherlands censored himself, even though he had mostly spoken to the dusty ceiling beams above them. “The Ladies wish for Belgium to be there while they,” he coughed, “explain her new duties to her. When I left,” when they had essentially thrown him from the room, “she had frozen in fright.”

“But why,” neither servant could read any mockery in his voice, only confusion, “why would she be frightened?”  
  
He received no response.  
  
That bothered Spain for the rest of the afternoon. It had bothered him as Belgium had softly slipped into the portion of the castle he never quite had the time to visit. It bothered him as the Netherlands had come up with a perfunctory excuse to leave.  
  
It bothered him.  
  
It bothered him so much that later that evening, when walking alone along the side of one of his courtyards, when he normally would have crossed the grounds to his left, he took an impulsive turn to his right and found himself in the new quarters of his wife. Such a strange, human concept, _wives_. But it was appropriate. It was the most appropriate step he had been able to think of, given the circumstances, and although he didn’t know how he was to treat Romana now that she and he had stood side-by-side at the altar, he knew he hadn’t been wrong.  
  
Spain had saved his portion of the Italian peninsula from harm, and France, and all the harms France promised like some monster in the dark.  
  
She wasn’t an equal, a fellow power. An alliance against France would have been laughable.  
  
She wasn’t just some pretty little set of rolling hills and sun soaked fields either. Spain could never have taken her as a mistress.  
  
Besides, France had no respect for mistresses. No one had any respect for mistresses, when it came down to it, not that Spain let himself think about that side of the coin. Not that Spain couldn’t think about mistresses if he wanted to, even on his wedding day. Not that Spain was the kind of nation, man, who would think about mistresses on his wedding day even if he could. Which he could.  
  
Not that Spain was watching where he was walking.  
  
“Y-you…”  
  
For the first time since he put the beautiful, cold ring onto her beautiful, warm finger, Spain looked Romana in the eyes. Her eyes were beautiful as well, but he had no idea which temperature they were. He liked to imagine they were warm, for him, because why wouldn’t they be? “Did you behave?”  
  
Romana took a step backwards. Her skirts rustled against the ground as she did, and after he registered the sound Spain realized she was barely dressed at all. He could see her arms. He could see her neck. He could clearly see she only had one layer of skirts on, although he had no idea how he knew that other than the fact that he needed to throw his cloak over her entire body before she embarrassed… before she embarrassed someone. Someone.  
  
Herself.  
  
Yes, before she embarrassed herself.  
  
While Spain had taken in his bride’s attire, his bride had taken in his gawking ( _gawking she had interpreted as stern, unwelcome, unsought disapproval_ ). She had not liked what she had found. “…and are you even listening to me? Are you? Of course not, you never listen. Spain! You are the worst bastard I have ever _met_ —”  
  
Spain brushed his thoughts away, and in two steps swirled his black cloak off of his shoulders and onto hers. The fabric overwhelmed her, drowned her, but Spain didn’t see a little serving girl playing in his clothes, not anymore. He wondered at that, lightly, before dismissing it as nothing of mention. Of course Romana had grown under his care. “Don’t talk to me so.” Satisfied that Romana was properly covered, nothing showing but her large angry eyes and straight angry mouth, Spain grabbed her shoulders and began to manoeuver her back to her bedroom.  
  
“I can talk to you however I wish. I always have.” She tried dragging her heels, only to have Spain threaten to pick her up. Rather than risk the blow to her pride she tried to outpace him. “You are no better than me.”  
  
She failed. “Yes I am!”  
  
When they came to the rooms Spain had designated for her, Romana attempted to speed past him and shut the door behind her, preferably in his face, preferably on his nose, even more preferably on his smug smile. He easily dodged her plot, more so as he had lost his smile the second time she had called him a bastard in her rant. Once into the room he kept his hold on her arm tight and stepped them both quickly to a section of the wall near the fireplace.  
  
Romana stomped.  
  
No one came to her rescue, however, or to attack Spain ( _she would take either_ ). And as the secret panel, nestled between the fireplace and a tapestry glorifying Naples so much that even Romana had difficulty reconciling the thread and city, swung inward, she realized she should have expected it.  
  
Spain thought the same.  
  
But about the stomping and the attempts to run away and the foul oaths. He was fully aware of the passageway between his room and Romana’s, had planned her new living arrangements around the passageway in particular, although instead of ease of access to defend her in case of outside invasion all he could think of at the moment was getting out of his clothes and into his bed.  
  
And perhaps sleep as well.  
  
He sat Romana down on his bed, cloak spread around her, and attempted to shake up his strange mood as he disrobed. “You are not your grandfather’s daughter at all, are you?”  
  
Romana snorted, but held the cloak close. It smelled like far and near, both, like something she couldn’t name and something she didn’t want to, all wrapped up in blood. “That makes no sense.” She took a deep breath and tried not to think about any of the other conversations she’d had earlier in the day. She tried not to peek past the screen Spain had disappeared behind. She succeeded, for once, but couldn’t help how hot the room suddenly felt.  
  
Damned Spain.  
  
“Yes it does!” Damned Spain emerged from some other corner of his room, smiling again.  
  
That he emerged without any covering besides the crucifix that hung from his neck did not escape Romana’s notice. “W-w-what are you doing?!” With every calm step Spain took forwards, Romana edged further backwards. Soon she had covered the width of the bed and had nowhere else to go, with only a decorative pillow to hide behind. She did so, quickly, and tried to fill the silence. Explanations, as close to apologies as she ever came, flooded the air between her and Spain. “I was only thirsty, and no one thought to fill the jug in my room. And all the humans were sleeping and they screech like devils when they wake. A-and _what are you doing!?_ ”  
  
Spain blinked, one leg underneath his sheets and the other soon following. Romana’s entire face had turned a familiar red, and Spain couldn’t help a short sigh of laughter. There was something endearing about her panicked, guilty outbursts. He wondered, as he slid completely into bed and patted the spot next to him, whether he had developed a soft spot for his charge—wife. For his wife. “I thought Belgium was sent to give you lessons today?” Her face went from rosy to pale and she ducked her head under the pillow clutched to her chest instead of answering. Spain marveled at the strange reaction. Had he said something wrong? “You were supposed to receive more lessons today. Did any of them teach you not to ask so many questions?”  
  
She didn’t answer with any oath or protestation. Spain shifted closer. Had someone attempted to poison her? Was she ill?  
  
“What is it?”  
  
She shifted away, silent. Spain would wait until morning to kill the person who thought he could poison Romana and get away with it.  
  
“Romana? What is wrong with you?”  
  
She lifted her head and opened her mouth, as if to answer. When she did nothing further, Spain took matters, and her wrist, into his own hands. He pulled her and her indecent lack of clothing next to him ( _ignoring his far greater indecency_ ) and stared into her eyes from as close as he dared ( _she had bitten him on the nose once when he had tried to intimidate her. He did not care to repeat the experience_ ).  
  
That was all it took for Romana to finally surrender. “They told me it would be over quickly and that I should feel lucky because you have all your own teeth. And because you find your children over the sea and not inside me.” Droplets began to form at the corners of her eyes and a long, strained silence later Spain realized that she was scared. Romana was only scared, of something the Ladies had told her earlier in the day; either a rushed lesson in imperialism and geography, or a scarring lesson on the topic of pleasing a man. Perhaps both at the same time. “…I— I care nothing for your damned teeth.”  
  
Even terrified, Romana was Romana and Spain rather felt as though he loved her. Love was also a strange, human concept, except perhaps not, and Spain didn’t want to analyze his heart while Romana slowly regained her mental footing. Instead he ran a finger along the edge of his incisors and crossed his eyes in an attempt to see past his nose. “They are very nice teeth though.”  
  
She crossed her arms. “They are _stupid_.”  
  
“Romana…”  
  
“I hate you.”  
  
And she was back to normal. _They_ were back to normal again, whatever normal was for their kind. She glared at him and he felt her portion of his people mock his administrators. He took a breath and felt her taxes rush into his blood. He sat still while she pulled her wrist from his grasp, pulled the covers close and attempted to punch him in the chest. Yes, they were back to where they always had been.  
  
Which meant Spain felt as confused as ever. “What…?”  
  
Romana straightened her back, posture perfect, and pointed at the door. The top of her affronted head came to Spain’s shoulders, almost. “Get out.”  
  
What a silly girl; Romana had always been such a silly little girl, had been quite wonderful for lifting Spain’s spirits when she hadn’t been disobeying him. She was still silly as a wife. Spain was pleased that that hadn’t changed, even though he could still see fear wavering at the corner of her eyes. “This is my room! If anyone leaves it will be you.” Before she could flounce away, and he was certain she would try to flounce away, Spain drew the curtains around them and plunged them into almost darkness. “And I order you to stay, so no one leaves at all! Now move over. Your body takes up the entire bed.”  
  
“I hate you.” She moved anyway, just far enough out of Spain’s reach that no part of their bodies touched.  
  
Something about that made Spain’s heart furious. He bit his lip and drew an arm around her. He needed to convince Romana that she needed to be grateful for the sacrifice he had made. She needed to know that she owed him everything. “I did this for your own good. You know that, you _do_. It is the best thing that has happened to you since you came here.”  
  
That was the truth.  
  
Romana’s muscles relaxed ( _how long had they been tense?_ ) and she whispered a question near Spain’s ear. It was soft, and light, and innocent, and before Spain could answer he had to force his words past a mysterious lump that had formed in the back of his throat. “Is it the best thing that has happened to you?”  
  
“Of course not. I married you because I had to— urgh!”  
  
That was also the truth; Spain would never have tied himself to a vassal state if he had not witnessed firsthand an enemy building armies and watching borders. That France had also spent considerable amounts of time openly appreciating Romana’s burgeoning… inheritance…  
  
Thoughts occupied, Spain didn’t notice Romana’s warning huff. He just barely registered her warning roll across the bed and her melodramatic, pointed shove. “I am _leaving_.”  
  
“I said you were _not_.”  
  
And she couldn’t. She couldn’t move at all with Spain’s knees pinning her legs to the bed. She could barely breathe with Spain’s hands pushing her shoulders back down into the mattress. She could only curse his swiftness, his breath above her and her own weakness. “That hurts! You bastard; that hurts! Let go!”  
  
“No.” He said it with finality, and dark eyes, and Romana couldn’t breathe with everything closing in around her. “…Perhaps sleep will cure your hysteria.”  
  
He said it in the same voice he used when trying to force his language onto her tongue; slowly, simply, for a child. It was a tone she refused to accept, any and all fears aside. Spain was an overwhelming idiot, but Romana would not allow him to treat her as one. “I am not hysterical.”  
  
“ _Sleep_ , Romana.”  
  
Spain ignored Romana’s murderous grumbling and sank down from his position above her. For all that he wanted her to sleep in order to calm her ridiculous anxieties, Spain also wanted Romana to sleep so that he could stop needing to watch her. When she slept, Romana was peaceful. When she slept, Romana stayed put. When she slept, Spain could look at her without fearing the repercussions when she saw what he couldn’t mask in his eyes. Expressions that formed as he watched her… which he definitely didn’t do while she slept. Not at all. Just in case, though, to ensure such watching was impossible, Spain aligned himself on top of Romana’s body. With his legs on hers he couldn’t gaze at the line her calves made when her tousled nightgown edged higher. With his chest directly over hers he couldn’t watch her breaths glide in and out of her body, so small compared to his. With his head nestled in the crook of her neck, he could see nothing but stray locks of her hair.  
  
He willed himself to sleep. When that failed, Spain willed himself to feel the hard edges of the crucifix trapped between his chest and hers. The reminder was less powerful than it had once been, alarmingly, and instead all Spain could feel was the pair of rings he and Romana shared. They seemed to say ‘take what you desire’ in God’s own voice.  
  
“It… too dark.”

“Hmm?” Romana’s voice had been soft but insistent. Curious. Spain held her closer, to prevent any escape, and sang a light warning in her ear. “Still not sleeping.”  
  
She attempted to lift one of her legs, ostensibly to kick him. Spain trapped it between his own before she could do any damage. He could hear defeat, and something else, something new, in her next reply. “T-the curtains make the air too stuffy for sleep!”  
  
“I sleep with the curtains closed.”  
  
She turned her head towards the direction of his voice, too close, and her lips brushed his cheek. “I do _not_.”  
  
“I _do_.”  
  
He registered none of the anger that slipped into his voice, mind far too busy with rearranging his hands so they grasped the sheets below him, tight, tight enough to forget her body beneath him, tight enough to try. Romana heard every note of his frustration and shivered. Spain did not anger easily; somehow she always managed to infuriate him, though, to push away his smiles far faster than any courtesan or other land under his protection.  
  
Romana had taken pride in her ability. Her ability made her special. She could gain Spain’s attention like no other, faster than any other. But lying underneath Spain, with only her fear and his anger between them, Romana no longer felt pride.  
  
She felt scared.  
  
And alone.  
  
And, perhaps, a little honest. Perhaps a little more honest than she had ever felt in Spain’s presence. With all her pretenses crushed and crumpled, all Romana had to give Spain was her honesty. She hoped he found it a thing of value. “…sometimes in the night I feel as though I can hear them.” He pushed himself up, above her body again, as if to see better into her eyes. “The monsters Grandfather used to tell us about. The ones that took him away.”  
  
He stared at her, and she couldn’t read anything in his eyes. “Those myths are only blasphemous stories.”  
  
“But there _are_ demons. What if his stories only gave names to the things we are protected from?”  
  
She bit her lip. Spain found himself wanting to bite it too, despite the fact he was also trying to assuage her baseless night terrors. Despite the fact he was smoothing away worries about her grandfather. Spain no longer felt like a caretaker who had to sing his charge to sleep and pat her hair until her breathing evened. He was… Spain was himself, a man and a nation and… and he had to prove to Romana that nothing would ever hurt her. He had to prove to her that he was the best thing to ever happen to her.  
  
Spain let his body sink against hers a final time. This time, however, he placed the metal cross into her grasping hand instead of using it as a shield against her. He laced his fingers with hers around it and felt stronger. “We are protected from demons more than anyone else. We are holy nations, Romana… And France is too much of a coward to try and invade my own bedchamber.”  
  
Romana frowned. “That is not what I meant.” But her body felt warmer than before.  
  
Still, Spain frowned as well. “You should never trouble yourself over these matters. Your mind should be blank with sleep; now,” he smiled against her neck and drew his face up, softly, until they fit together, cheek to cheek, “the Lord knows I wish mine was.”  
  
“Sh-s-shut up!”  
  
He laughed and she could feel the sound move from her breasts down to her navel. Damned Spain, and his damned laugh, and his damned… everything. Damned Spain and his everything that made Romana wish he would damn her everything too.  
  
“You will sleep here from now on, behind these curtains, and whatever stories or demons there are will have to drag you out of my lifeless arms.”  
  
Spain said it as though he had procured an answer for her, sent from the gates of heaven themselves. But Romana would not leave it as that. She couldn’t. She had to ask. “And when you are away?”  
  
He tried to laugh the question away. “How are the devils to know when I am and am not here?”  
  
But she would have none of it. “It would not be difficult for them to guess.”  
  
Romana was not an empire, no matter that she was now married to one, no matter that she was the direct descendant of a great one. Romana had never been an empire, and would never understand the rush of that power. The need to find that power, to control and tame and subdue it. Spain understood power. He understood his need to have it.  
  
To be completely honest with himself, he didn’t understand his need for Romana. But Spain was never one to need to understand something in order to grasp it. “But after you have slept here for so long, they will always stay far away. As far as Calais. Further!”

“Why?”  
  
Spain blushed. It was his turn to feel like a child. “As my wife you are a part of me.” He paused. “You _have_ been reading your scripture…?”  
  
“ _Yes_.” Romana tensed against him for a moment, before relaxing back into a limp warmth that Spain desperately wished to… to do… to have… to. He… “Adam and Eve were humans.”  
  
He wanted her. He had her beneath him, for once subdued and trusting him, and he wanted her.  
  
“And?”  
  
But Romana, beneath Spain, for once subdued and trusting him, only wanted reassurance. She wanted only to feel Spain’s strength and rest in the safety it brought her, Spain was sure of it.  
  
“We are not.”  
  
He rolled their bodies to the side and let his hips fall, as if by accident, a hand’s width apart from hers. Damn heaven and hell, but he wanted her. “Your clay still belongs to me.” But he had her, now. And another night, perhaps the next, perhaps… perhaps only later, he would show her. For now, he would make sure she knew who she was. “And now everyone knows it. Heaven. Hell. All of us in between.”

“You had better be right, Spain, because if you are not I will… I shall…”  
  
She ducked her head underneath his chin, trembled against his naked chest. Spain bit his cheek and pulled her close against him again. It was dark when, hands resting on the small of her back, Spain could hold himself away no longer. He capped his response with a soft kiss to Romana’s forehead, dragged his legs between hers and prepared for whatever retaliation she could imagine.  
  
“Yes? What shall you do?”  
  
Romana responded with the worst retribution Spain had expected; she drew her body close to his, trusting, warm, and set her mind on a slow drift to slumber. She mumbled once more before allowing his reassurances to carry her away.  
  
“Never forgive you.”

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to make this feel like the past while still retaining the awkward horny teenager-ness of Spain and Romana. I know this didn’t hit the smut spot ( _or, rather, it cockblocked Spain most fantastically_ ), and was incredibly mushy there at the end, but I hope you enjoyed it!
> 
>  **How will you explain this to Austria:** for this I pictured Hapsburg Spain as allied with Austria. But without any marriage. Partially because this is a spamano story, partially because that would have been a touch difficult to reconcile anyway without the romantic element ( _‘our countries shall ally’ ‘lol sure. And alliances=marriage!’ ‘yeah let’s marry this shit!’ ‘…wait’ ‘…’ ‘…oh shit our countries are both men’ ‘fuck we have complexes about this’ ‘shit man, what’re we gonna do?’ ‘…………………you know those BFF necklaces where you each take half?’ ‘lol totes bff!’ ‘like really, we can totally do that with the maids’ ‘for realz’_ ). So Spain and Austria are like conquering empire business partners. And you don’t go and get married to the maid without consulting your conquering empire business partner; that’s just not polite.
> 
>  **Re clothes:** wikipedia said this was the fashion so I went with it ( _this also sets the time period_ ): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Isabel_de_Valois1.jpg 
> 
> **Re the repeated jokes at France’s expense:** Spain and France hated each other for a long time. I see Spain as the sort to not miss the chance to get in the odd little zing against an enemy.
> 
>  **Adam and Eve were humans:** see Genesis, God makes Adam out of dirt, makes Eve out of Adam’s rib, therefore womenfolk were made out of menfolk’s bits, etc etc etc. Granted, Femano’s dirt started out as her own before Spain conquered it, but technicalities. Femano’s dirt, literally at this point in time, does belong to Spain.


End file.
